Walt Minnick

The Hon. Walt Minnick (D-ID)

Partner & Cofounder

Walt Minnick represented Idaho’s 1st Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives.  He served on the Financial Services and Agriculture Committees and was heavily involved in authoring and negotiating key provisions in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.  Mr. Minnick was a member of the Blue Dog Coalition with a legislative record that was fiscally conservative, pro business and socially progressive.  According to the Washington Post, he established the most independent voting record in Congress during his tenure.

Prior to holding elected office, Mr. Minnick was co-founder, Chairman of the Board, and CEO of SummerWinds Inc., a privately owned group of 12 high-end, retail nurseries located in St. Louis, Phoenix and Silicon Valley which is now the 14th largest independent garden center company in the United States.  He previously was President and CEO of Trus Joist Corporation, a high-tech forest products company.  Mr. Minnick helped transform this $35 million business into a Fortune 1000 multinational public corporation.  Today, Trus Joist is a $3 billion division of Weyerhaeuser Co.  During this time, Mr. Minnick served on numerous Boards of Directors of public and private companies.  He was co-founder and director of the Idaho Business Council (CEO’s and business unit Presidents of Idaho’s largest companies), a member of the American Business Conference (CEO’s of 100 high-growth American corporations), chairman of the College of Idaho’s Board of Trustees, and represented Idaho at President Clinton’s Pacific Northwest Timber Summit.  In 1991, Idaho State University named him “Idaho Businessman of the Year”.

Prior to joining Trus Joist in 1974, Mr. Minnick served for 3½ years as Staff Assistant to President Richard M. Nixon in the White House with responsibility for starting the federal government’s global anti drug program.  He also served as Deputy Assistant Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).  He was previously a 1st Lieutenant in the U.S. Army stationed in the Pentagon working for the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) and as the economist on on the Defense Department’s Vietnamization Task Force.  Prior to his military service, Mr. Minnick was an associate with the firm of Davies, Biggs, Stoel, Rives and Boley, Portland, Oregon, then the largest law firm in the Pacific Northwest.

Mr. Minnick has a B.A. degree from Whitman College where he graduated Summa Cum Laude with honors in Economics in 1964.  He was a Baker Scholar and received an M.B.A. with High Distinction from Harvard Business School in 1966.  He subsequently graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard Law School in 1969.

Mr. Minnick was born in Walla Walla, Washington.  He is married to A.K. Lienhart-Minnick and has four children and four grandchildren.